Not one bit. I don’t care if they are friends, or family or in-laws. I don’t have time for them at all. You want to whine? Go whine to someone who cares, because I don’t.

While I mentioned 8 great strategies to handle negative people in your life there is one strategy that has worked so well that I had to share it with you. Now I can’t take credit for this. One of my customer service agents uses this technique all the time when he gets an angry customer on the phone. He swears by it, and says that once he uses this line on them – they stop yelling/shouting/swearing immediately. First off lets go over a typical conversation:

Customer: I bought blah-blah and it doesn’t work. I’ve called the number on the back and they can’t help me. I went back to the store and they won’t help me. Now I have to talk to you. Are you going to help me or do I have to go to the BBB about this? They are yelling at the top of their lungs, thinking that we’re deaf or somehow yelling will prove that they are right.

Agent: You know, I am sorry for the trouble that you’ve experienced with blah-blah and I can tell that you are very upset.

That’s when the line goes silent. You’ve just told the caller that you sympathize with them and that they are upset. That’s when they realize that they don’t need to yell. From then on, the call goes so smoothly.

Ok so you’re probably saying to yourself – but I face people day-to-day that whine, and whine, and whine.

What do they whine about? The weather, family problems, taxes, politics, religion, society… whatever they can think of.

Try this out on them “Wow! How do you deal with all those problems?”.

I’ve used this on people that are so negative that you wonder how they managed to survive in society and have maintained any type of relationship with anyone for any period of time. As I was writing this post, and doing some research on the topic I came across an excellent post on a site called Goals To Action. It’s short, sweet and to the point and you should read it. The post, 5 Tips for Handling Negative People you will learn more great techniques to deal with negative people.

Another excellent post that I found while researching is this one on Postive Sharing entitled How To Handle Chronic Complainers. I really enjoyed this post because I’ve been there AND I know people who have been there and some who are still there.

Got any chronic complainers where you work? It seems like every workplace has them – the people for whom the weather is always too warm or too cold, the boss is a jerk, the food is lousy, work sucks and … you fill out the list.

Alexander goes on to say that there are several things hat we normally try with complainers, but they don’t work. Here is the list of things that we try with complainers and whiners – you need to read the full post to learn why the techniques don’t work…

Cheering them up doesn’t work

Suggesting solutions doesn’t work

Telling them to pull themselves together doesn’t work

Complaining about the complainers doesn’t work

Ignoring them / avoiding them doesn’t work

Complaining along with them doesn’t work

Confronting them doesn’t work

The cool thing is that he doesn’t leave you hanging. He actually gives you a secret about what just may work…

A Trick That Does Work

So what does work? Here’s a simple but very effective trick:

A friend of mine who’s a dentist told me about an elderly, grouchy patient of hers. Every time he came in for an appointment he’d complain about the weather, his children, his car, taxes, society, and any other topic that might come up.

Now you might think “Hey, she’s a dentist, fill his mouth with gauze and cotton and let’s see him complain then!” but my friend is a naturally happy person and would instead try to cheer him up. Didn’t work, just made him complain even more.

So I taught her this trick and the next time he came in for an appointment she was ready. He went in the chair, and immediately started complaining.

After listening to his usual litany for a while my dentist friend said, with deep sympathy in her voice…

You will have to read the post to learn the secret…

About Rob 'n Mo

I'm a man of mystery. I like anonymity, but on the WWW there is not much of it...